Empire had let loose its disbanded and revolted armies upon the people, and the troops lived by open pillage. The miserable peasants, stripped of their little hoards, were forced to become plunderers in turn, and in 1772 it was reported that organized gangs of robbers were burning, plundering, and ravaging the interior districts of Bengal in bodies of 50,000 men. The English found no police in India to cope with this great evil. For a time the East India Company's troops were constantly engaged against the banditti, but by degrees the robber bands were broken up and scattered themselves over the country in small gangs. Lawlessness had been the normal condition of India for at least 100 years before the advent of the British, and a great organization of the criminal classes had existed from time immemorial, which had to be put down without the aid of any regular police. At first the company's servants attempted to extirpate crime by copying the cruel criminal code of the Mussulman, and the gang robbers retaliated by incendiarism on a great scale throughout the country. All this, however, had changed. There was now only about one-third of the crime in Bengal that there was in England. While for each million persons in England and Wales there were 870 criminals always in gaol, in Bengal, where the police was very completely organized, there were not 300 convicts in gaol for each million; and while in England and Wales there were 340 women in gaol for each million of the female population, in Bengal there were less than 20 women in gaol for each million of the female population. The use of troops against banditti was now a thing of the past, and the existence of an army was less realized in a rural district of Bengal than in an English shire. A century of British rule had, therefore, not only secured the Indian frontier from invaders, but had freed the interior from banditti. This triumph of good government had been achieved partly by legislation and partly by police. The English in India recognized that they had a special class of crimes to deal with, and they framed a special department of criminal law to put these crimes down. After illustrating this with reference to the Dakoits and Thugs, and referring to the trouble still given in recently annexed parts of India by the old predatory clans, the lecturer went on to say that a well-paid and highlydisciplined police now dealt efficiently with the small amount of crime still existing in India. The old criminal tribes found it more profitable to be on the side of law than against it, and sought employment as detectives or house-watchmen. Touching next on Indian famines, Dr. Hunter said this was now recognized as one of the most difficult problems with which the Indian administration has to deal. A hundred years ago a failure of the crops confined to a single district and involving the starvation of a few thousand families, or entering a province or a still wider area and occasioning the death of hundreds of thousands or millions, was accepted as something natural and inevitable. Even as late as 1837 famine was practically regarded as beyond the help of man, and the famine of that year left behind so terrible a memory that to this day the peasants employed it as an era by which to calculate their ages. After sketching the horrors of a famine in the last century which entailed the loss of about 10 million lives, and mentioning that in that terrible summer of 1770 only £9,000 was distributed to aid the starving population of Bengal, Dr. Hunter called attention to the fact that in the

Bengal scarcity of 1874 the British Government spent close on four millions, and in that and the five following years devoted over 14 millions to feeding its people. Here, he said, was one great difference between the last century and the present; but it was by no means the most important difference. In the last century neither Government nor people thought it possible to deal with a great Indian famine. In the present century famine had been brought within administrative control. A vast organization of preventive and remedial agencies was constantly kept in readiness to deal with the periodically occurring dearths. Canals, irrigation works of many kinds, railways, roads, and every improved form of modern communication, together with state charity in India and the munificent benevolence of the British nation at home, were the weapons with which the Indian Government now did battle against famine. Depopulation from any cause was now unknown. In the last century various causes of depopulation were at work; the quick-growing jungle spread over the deserted land, and fierce beasts were the undisputed lords of fertile tracts. As the rural communities relinquished their hamlets and drew closer to the centre of a district, the wild beasts pressed hungrily in their rear. In vain the East India Company offered a reward for each tiger's head sufficient to maintain a peasant's family in comfort for three months; in vain it spent the whole land revenue of a frontier district in rewards for killing wild beasts. Tigers, leopards, and wolves slew their thousands of men and their tens of thousands of cattle; but the wild elephants were absolutely resistless, lifting off roofs, pashing down walls, trampling a village under foot as if it were a city of sand In two parishes alone during the last few years of the native administration 56 villages with their surrounding lands had been destroyed or gone to jungle through the depredations of wild elephants. All this has now changed. One of the complaints of the modern Englishman in India was that he could so seldom get a shot at a tiger; wolves had disappeared. The wild elephant was now so rare that he was specially protected by the Government, and in many parts of India he could only be caught by official licence or under official supervision. Many districts had petitioned for a close season, so as to preserve the edible game still remaining. The only animal that had defied the energy of the British official was the snake. One might, however, judge of the loss of life by wild beasts in the last century from the deaths caused by this their sole survivor at the present day. The ascertained number of deaths from snake-bite in 1869 exceeded 11,000, and it was estimated that 20,000 persons annually died in India from this cause. The total deaths from wild beasts in the last century was probably not under 150,000 a year. Dr. Hunter concluded by briefly recapitulating the improvements he had described as a few of the outward and visible results of a century of British rule in India, and intimating that on Friday evening he should examine some of its less obvious, but equally important consequences. They should find, he said, that great as was the success which their countrymen had won in establishing peace and security throughout the provinces of India, they had accomplished a far more difficult task and won even more glorious results in the social emancipation, the industrial development, and the moral enlightenment of the people. The lecturer was frequently applauded.

Mr. Durrad quoted at the outset one of Byron's poems, in which, he said, the sun was supposed to be extinguished, and the earth to wander in eternal space; the result being that everybody went mad and fought each other, until at last they all died of starvation. This picture was, at any rate, overdrawn, for if the sun's heat was extinguished, there would be no time to starve; in two days all the moisture suspended in the air would fall to the earth in the shape of rain and snow, a frost, severe beyond all description, would set in, and by the third day, life would, in all probability, be extinguished. Under such conditions, Herschel and other authorities calculated that the temperature would fall to 300 degrees below zero, and human existence would be utterly impossible. The sun's heat-or rather the two-millionth part of it, which fell upon the earth- -was so great that if the amount received yearly could be equally distributed over the earth, it would be capable of dissolving a layer of ice 100 feet thick, and covering the whole earth; or it would raise to boiling point an ocean covering the whole globe to a depth of sixty miles. Having mentioned that the brilliancy of the sun's rays was 136 times greater than that of the electric light, the lecturer explained that one of the most important functions which the sun performs is the control of the planets; and were the sun to be suddenly annihilated, each planet, from Mercury to Neptune, would start off in a straight line in the direction they happened to be moving in at the time, never to approach each other again. Having explained the different methods hitherto adopted with a view of ascertaining the distance of the sun from the earth, Mr. Durrad stated that the observations taken at the transit of Venus gave the safest results, and according to the latest calculations, the mean distance was 93,375,000 miles-a distance more than 480 times greater than that of the moon. The distance of the sun having thus been ascertained, astronomers were able to calculate with surprising accuracy the distances, dimensions, and weights of the planets. The immense distance of the sun was almost incomprehensible when reduced to mere figures, and therefore the following illustration by Herschel might not be out of place :-A train, travelling at the rate of forty miles an hour, might make a circuit of the earth in twenty-six days and nights, but at the same speed it would take two hundred and seventy years to reach the sun. Again: the ball of an Armstrong gun was projected at a velocity of 400 yards per second, but at that speed it would take 13 years to reach the sun, and the sound of the explosion, supposing it to travel at the ordinary rate, would not reach the sun till six months later. The diameter of the sun was calculated at 850,000 miles and its weight was so great as to be utterly incomprehensible. The attractive power on its surface was 315,000 times greater than that of the earth, as was illustrated by the fact that a pound weight would, on the sun, weigh 14 tons, and a man of ordinary stature would weigh 20,000 tons, (laughter). By his own weight he would be crushed almost as flat as paper! A body, if raised but an inch from the surface and let fall, would strike it with a velocity three times greater than that of the swiftest express train. The sun's surface consisted of layers of gases, intensely heated, but apparently kept in fluid form by enormous pressure.

These layers were certainly 20,000 miles, probably 50,000 miles in depth. The imprisoned gases from time to time forced their way up through this coating, and thus large gulfs were formed. These gulfs were in reality the dark spots sometimes observable upon the sun's surface, The smallest spot, seen through the most powerful telescope, must occupy an area of 50,000 square miles, while the diameter of the largest was computed at 143,000 square miles. Schwabe, a German astronomer, discovered that these spots periodically increased or decreased in size, and these changes were remarkable because of magnetic disturbances which occurred on the earth during the same periods.

Sources and Growth of the English Language. (Continued from last month.)

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ENGLISH WRITERS. Akenside, Mark, physician and author, was born in 1721. He wrote "Pleasures of the Imagination," a philosophical poem.

Ascham, Roger, born 1515, tutor to Princess Elizabeth, and Latin secretary to her when queen, was a famous scholar and Cambridge public orator. He wrote the " Scholemaster," to advocate the teaching of the Latin tongue.

Bacon, Lord Francis, born 1561, was educated at Cambridge. He subsequently practised at the bar. He was a friend of Essex. He became M.P. in 1592, being knighted, and in 1607 was made SolicitorGeneral, Attorney-General in 1613, Keeper of the Great Seal in 1617, and Lord Chancellor (Baron Verulam) in 1618. For bribery in his office he was fined £40,000, driven out of his offices, and imprisoned. In his Novum Organum he became the father of experimental philosophy, and his Advancement of Learning and Essays are among the best philosophical writings in the language.

Baxter, Richard, born 1615, was a clergyman of Dudley and Kidderminster. Later on he joined the Parliamentarian party, and became a Presbyterian, but was made Chaplain to Charles II. afterwards, and was a member of the Savoy Conference. In 1662 he became the head of the Nonconformists, and for his opposition to the church was imprisoned. His most famous works are the "Catholic Theology," and "The Saints' Everlasting Rest.'

Bronte, Charlotte, born 1816, was one of three daughters of the Incumbent of Haworth (Yorkshire). Under the name of Currer Bell she wrote "Jane Eyre." She also wrote "Shirley," and "Villette." Bunyan, John, born 1628, at Elston, near Bedford, was the son of a tinker, at which trade he himself worked till he joined the Parliamentary army at 18 years of age. He joined the Baptists, and was imprisoned for twelve years in Bedford gaol for itinerant preaching. There he wrote the finest allegory in the English language, "Pilgrim's Progress." His next chief work was the "Holy War," an allegory describing the struggles of man's soul against sin. His character was estimable and pure.

Burke, Edmund, born 1731, orator, statesman, philosopher, and author. Burke wrote "Vindication of Natural Society," Essay on

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the Sublime and Beautiful," Letter to a Noble Lord" (a defence of himself against the Duke of Bedford), "Reflections on the French Revolution," and "Letter on a Regicide Peace." He was M.P. during the time of the American War and the French Revolution, and impeached Warren Hastings.

Burns, Robert, born at Alloway (Ayrshire) in 1759, of peasant parents. He began to write verses at an early age while farming at home, and afterwards with his brothers, and published a volume to raise funds to emigrate. As these succeeded he stayed at home, but became intemperate in his habits, and died at the early age of 37. He wrote "Tam o' Shanter," "The Jolly Beggars," "Address to the De'il," "The Twa Dogs" (dialogue on rich and poor), "Cotter's Saturday Night," "Halloween," "Vision of Liberty," and many small lyrics and poems of exquisite tenderness, pathos, humour, and delicacy ("Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," &c.)

Butler, Samuel, born 1612, though deficient in early education, was one of the most erudite writers of the time of the Restoration. Having been tutor of an extreme Presbyterian of the Long Parliament, he learned from him the traits satirized in his poem "Hudibras." This became extremely popular, especially among his own party, the Cavaliers, and with Charles II. in particular. He, notwithstanding, died in great poverty in London, not leaving wherewithal to pay for his grave in St. Paul's churchyard. In "Hudibras" Butler satirized the Presbyterians and Independents, not always fairly, in the person of a Justice of the Peace (Hudibras), and his clerk Ralph; the former representing the Presbyterians, the latter the Independents. He also satirized the newly-founded Royal Society in his "Elephant in the Moon."

Byron, Lord, born in London in 1788, and brought up in Aberdeen. He succeeded to the inheritance of Newstead Abbey, Notts., and went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where, however, his life was irregular, as it was subsequently as a rule. Here he published "Hours of Idleness," which being severely criticised by the Edinburgh Review, was revenged in "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Byron then travelled in the East, and reflected the scenery of Greece, Turkey, &c., in his next poems: 66 Childe Harold," "The Giaour," "The Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," "Lara.” On his return to England he made a very unhappy marriage, and he again retired to the continent. At this time he wrote "The Prisoner of Chillon," "Manfred," "Lament of Tasso," "Mazeppa," "Don Juan," "Sardanapalus," "Cain," &c. He joined the Greeks in their struggle for independence, and died aged 36. His writings are most of them spoiled by reflecting his discontented morose temperament, loose thought, and sceptical tendencies. Campbell, Thomas, born at Glasgow, 1777, was the author of "Pleasures of Hope," "Hohenlinden," Ye Mariners of England," "Lochiel's Warning," and "Gertude of Wyoming."

Chatterton, Thomas, son of a parish schoolmaster at Bristol, born 1752. He wrote respectable verses at 11 years of age, and committed suicide before he was 18. Within this brief period he forged writings which he pretended he had discovered in a chest of St. Mary Redcliffe's,